Mexican new religious movement, female deity, and folk saint
Not to be confused with San La Muerte.
Our Lady of Holy Death Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte
Close-up of a Santa Muerte statue south of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
Other names
Lady of Shadows, Lady of the Night, White Lady, Black Lady, Skinny Lady, Bony Lady, Mictēcacihuātl (Lady of the Dead)
Affiliation
A wide variety of powers including love, prosperity, good health, fortune, healing, safe passage, protection against witchcraft, protection against assaults, protection against gun violence, protection against violent death
Major cult center
Shrine of Most Holy Death, Mexico City, Mexico
Weapon
Scythe
Artifacts
Globe, scale of justice, hourglass, oil lamp
Animals
Owl
Symbol
Human female skeleton clad in a robe
Region
Primarily Central America, Mexico, and Southwestern United States (scant worship in the Caribbean, Canada, and Europe)
Festivals
August 15, November 2, and many public shrines celebrate the date of their founding
Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish:[ˈnwestɾaseˈɲoɾaðelaˈsantaˈmweɾte]; Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a new religious movement, female deity, narco-saint,[1][2] and folk saint in Mexican folk Catholicism and Neopaganism.[3][4]: 296–297 A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees.[5] Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church[6] and Evangelical pastors,[7] her cult has become increasingly prominent since the turn of the 21st century.[8]
Santa Muerte almost always appears as a female skeletal figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe.[9] Her robe can be of any color, as more specific images of the figure vary widely from devotee to devotee and according to the ritual being performed or the petition being made.[10]
Her present day following was first reported in Mexico by American anthropologists in the 1940s and was an occult practice until the early 2000s. Most prayers and other rituals have been traditionally performed privately at home.[11] Since the beginning of the 21st century, worship has become more public, starting in Mexico City after a believer named Enriqueta Romero founded her famous Mexico City shrine in 2001.[11][12][13] The number of believers in Santa Muerte has grown over the past two decades, to an estimated 12 million followers who are concentrated in Mexico, Central America, and the United States with a smaller contingent of followers in Canada and Europe. Santa Muerte has two similar male counterparts in Latin America, the skeletal folk saints San La Muerte of Argentina and Paraguay and Rey Pascual of Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico.[13] According to R. Andrew Chesnut, Ph.D. in Latin American history and professor of religious studies, Santa Muerte is at the center of the single fastest-growing new religious movement in the world.[14]
^Vincent, Isabel (21 December 2021). "Santa Muerte and five more 'religious' saints worshiped by drug cartels". New York Post. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
^Flannagin, Jake (September 2014). "The Rise of the Narco-Saints". The Atlantic. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
^Chesnut, R. Andrew (2016). "Healed by Death: Santa Muerte, the Curandera". In Hunt, Stephen J. (ed.). Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Movements, Institutions, and Allegiance. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 12. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 336–353. doi:10.1163/9789004310780_017. ISBN 978-90-04-26539-4. ISSN 1874-6691.
^Flores Martos, Juan Antonio (2007). "La Santísima Muerte en Veracruz, México: Vidas Descarnadas y Práticas Encarnadas". In Flores Martos, Juan Antonio; González, Luisa Abad (eds.). Etnografías de la muerte y las culturas en América Latina (in Spanish). Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla–La Mancha. pp. 273–304. ISBN 978-84-8427-578-7.
^Chesnut 2018, pp. 6–7.
^Kingsbury and Chesnut 2019, The Church's life-and-death struggle with Santa Muerte, The Catholic Herald
^Kingsbury and Chesnut 2020, Colonizing Death -American Evangelist Crusades Against Santa Muerte at Landmark Shrine in Tepito, Global Catholic Review
^Chesnut, R. Andrew (26 October 2017). Santa Muerte: The Fastest Growing New Religious Movement in the Americas (Speech). Lecture. Portland, Oregon: University of Portland. Archived from the original on 7 February 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
^"Los Angeles believers in La Santa Muerte say they aren't a cult | The Madeleine Brand Show | 89.3 KPCC". 66.226.4.226. 2012-01-10. Retrieved 2013-02-09.
^Velazquez, Oriana (2007). El libro de la Santa Muerte [The book of Santa Muerte] (in Spanish). Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, S.A. pp. 13–18. ISBN 978-968-15-2040-3.
^ abGarma, Carlos (2009-04-10). "El culto a la Santa Muerte" [The cult of Santa Muerte]. El Universal (in Spanish). Mexico City. Archived from the original on 3 July 2015. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
^Villarreal, Hector (2009-04-05). "La Guerra Santa de la Santa Muerte" [The Holy War of Santa Muerte]. Milenio semana (in Spanish). Mexico City: Milenio. Archived from the original on 2009-10-16. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
^ abChesnut 2018, pp. 26–50.
^, R. Andrew, Santa Muerte: El Movimiento Religioso de Más Rápido Crecimiento en el Mundo, Amazon, 2023. |url=https://www.amazon.com/Muerte-Movimiento-Religioso-Crecimiento-Spanish/dp/B0C47NL6SB/ref=sr_1_4?qid=1704480562&refinements=p_27%3AAndrew+Chesnut&s=books&sr=1-4%7C
Señora de la SantaMuerte (Spanish: [ˈnwestɾa seˈɲoɾa ðe la ˈsanta ˈmweɾte]; Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to SantaMuerte, is a new...
Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul). As a result of internal migration in Argentina since the 1960s, the veneration of San La Muerte has spread...
Villarreal, Hector (5 April 2009). "La Guerra Santa de la SantaMuerte" [The Holy War of SantaMuerte]. Milenio semana (in Spanish). Mexico City: Milenio...
Netflix is an American global Internet streaming-on-demand media provider that has distributed a number of original streaming television shows, including...
tianguis or market, and also has two major places of worship dedicated to SantaMuerte. The boundaries of the colonia are defined by the following streets:...
also find several related cases. The suspect is quickly nicknamed the SantaMuerte Killer. The FBI, unable to find Arthur Mitchell, follows its only other...
trafficker Leon del Muerte (born 1977), American guitarist and vocalist SantaMuerte, Mesoamerican religious figure San La Muerte, South American religious...
2009-10-07. Villarreal, Hector (2009-04-05). "La Guerra Santa de la SantaMuerte" [The Holy War of SantaMuerte]. Milenio semana (in Spanish). Mexico City: Milenio...
licensed same-sex marriages. The cult of SantaMuerte is a new religious movement centered on the worship of SantaMuerte, a cult image, female deity, and folk...
SantaMuerte, which has grown exponentially in Mexico, has been denounced by the Catholic Church as Devil-worship. However, devotees of SantaMuerte view...
figures. Famously, Anubis, Osiris, Hades, and La SantaMuerte have all had large cult followings. La SantaMuerte (Saint Death), or the personification of death...
February 2016). "Pope Francis vs. SantaMuerte". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 26 June 2018. "Vatican in a Bind About SantaMuerte". National Geographic. 14 May...
assimilating some elements of native Mexican culture into Christianity. SantaMuerte, a female deity of death, has also emerged as the combination of the...
Nacozari, Sonora. Three people were murdered as human sacrifices to SantaMuerte. Silvia Meraz was born in Hermosillo, Sonora. Her family lived in poverty...
"bad." Devotees of the saint may also venerate SantaMuerte and Jesús Malverde. However, unlike SantaMuerte and Jesús Malverde, veneration of Judas Thaddaeus...
Worldwide. p. 41. ISBN 9780738747781. Tomás Prower (1 Oct 2015). La SantaMuerte. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 99. ISBN 9780738745510. Alaric Albertsson (8...
skeleton. As early as 1797, the death goddess or folk saint known as SantaMuerte has been represented as a skeleton. List of bones of the human skeleton...
Title Role Notes 2011 Back in the Game Cowboy Short film 2014 The Men of SantaMuerte Will Short film 2015 Endings, Inc. Rusty Short film 2016 The Last Face...